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Fifty  Years  LSISfy 
Sotitiierri  7\sia 

W' — 


T 

Bi$l?op  Ja/T)es  /T\.  Sfyoburty 


Missionary  Society 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church 
150  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York. 


Fifty  Years  In  Southern  Asia 

By  Bishop  J.  M.  Thobum,  D.D. 

Fifty  years  ago  our  Church  had  not 
yet  fairly  entered  upon  her  foreign  mis- 
sionary work.  Up  to  that  date  our  peo- 
ple had  been  absorbed  in  the  immense 
and  urgent  demands  of  the  home  work, 
especially  in  the  great  West,  but  previ- 
ous to  the  beginning  of  the  last  century 
only  a slight  beginning  had  been  made 
among  the  teeming  millions  of  the  hea- 
then world.  Shortly  after  the  General 
Conference  of  1852  Dr.  Durbin  became 
impressed  with  a conviction  that  the 
time  had  come  for  the  Methodist  Epis- 
copal Church  to  enter  the  foreign  mis- 
sion field  in  force,  and  he  began  to  ex- 
press his  views  clearly  and  forcibly  in 
official  circles,  and  to  some  extent 
throughout  the  Church  at  large.  The 
members  of  the  Missionary  Board  were 
quite  prepared  to  adopt  his  views,  and 
after  careful  inquiry  and  due  delibera- 
tion it  was  decided  to  found  a well 
equipped  and  strong  mission  in  India, 
as  the  first  step  toward  a widespread 
and  vigorous  work  in  different  parts  of 
the  heathen  world.  India  was  selected 


chiefly  for  the  reason  that  it  was  the 
only  large  region  in  the  world  which 
was  at  that  time  both  wide  open,  and 
accessible  to  the  Christian  missionary. 

CHOICE  OF  A FOUNDER 
After  a long,  and  at  times  discourag- 
ing search,  the  choice  of  a founder  and 
superintendent  for  the  new  work  fell 
upon  Dr.  William  Butler  of  the  New 
England  Conference.  Every  one  has 
heard  the  story  of  his  appointment  in 
1856,  of  his  prompt  departure,  of  his  ar- 
rival in  India  and  selection  of  a field  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  country,  of  the 
energetic  beginning  of  his  work,  of  the 
outburst  of  the  great  war  of  the  Mutiny, 
of  the  breaking  up  of  the  new  mission, 
of  its  reorganization,  and  of  the  new 
start  made  in  1859. 

EMBARRASSED  BY  SUCCESS 
The  progress  of  this  mission  has  been 
rapid,  and  in  some  respects  extraordi- 
nary. It  so  far  surpassed  the  expecta- 
tions of  those  who  sent  Dr.  Butler  into 
the  field,  that  they  soon  found  them- 
selves embarrassed  by  its  success.  It 
had  been  Dr.  Durbin’s  plan  to  establish 
a vigorous  mission  with  twenty-five  men, 
a force  which  according  to  the  scale  of 
that  day  would  have  seemed  exception- 
ally strong,  and  it  was  hoped  that  the 
success  of  this  force  would  stimulate  the 
Church  to  make  other  missionary  at- 
tempts in  different  parts  of  the  world. 
The  territory  selected  for  these  twenty- 
five  missionaries  was  about  the  size  of 


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the  State  of  Indiana,  and  contained  a 
population  of  nearly  seventeen  million 
people.  It  was  a most  interesting-  and 
inviting  field,  and  certainly  seemed 
large  enough  to  absorb  the  sympathy 
and  challenge  the  energy  of  the  Church 
for  many  years,  but  God  had  other 
plans  in  reserve  for  the  missionaries, 
and  as  time  passed  they  were  led  into 
fields  of  which  they  had  never  dreamed, 
and  into  kinds  of  work  which  they  had 
never  sought,  and  did  not  desire.  Step 
by  step  they  were  led  outward  and  on- 
ward until  not  only  the  whole  great  em- 
pire of  India  was  embraced  in  their 
field,  but  they  passed  onward  toward 
the  southeast  and  entered  Malaysia, 
where  they  gained  a strong  position  and 
were  ready,  when  in  the  strange  prov- 
idence of  God  the  Philippines  were 
brought  under  the  American  flag,  to 
enter  in  and  proclaim  a free  gospel  to 
the  millions  who  had  so  unexpectedly 
become  their  fellow  subjects. 

FROM  A MUSTARD  SEED  TO  A GREAT  TREE 

But  while  the  missionaries  were  thus 
pushing  on  from  one  post  to  another, 
the  original  field  was  by  no  means  neg- 
lected. From  the  very  first  steady 
progress  was  reported.  In  1858  Dr. 
Butler  reported  twenty-three  members 
and  probationers.  In  1864,  when  Bish- 
op Thompson  went  to  India  to  reorgan- 
ize the  little  mission  into  an  Annual 
Conference,  the  membership  was  still 
small,  being  only  111  members  and  fif- 

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ty-three  probationers,  but  in  that  dis- 
tant day  of  small  things  these  numbers 
appeared  large,  and  were  considered  en- 
couraging. A few  years  later  the  mis- 
sionaries were  drawn  beyond  the  field 
first  selected  for  them,  and  before  the 
General  Conference  of  1876  met,  they 
were  preaching  in  nil  the  great  cities  of 
the  empire,  and  in  nine  different  lan- 
guages. A second  Conference  was  or- 
ganized at  that  time,  but  the  work  con- 
tinued to  spread,  until  at  the  present 
time  the  little  Mission  Conference  of 
1864  has  expanded  into  nine  Annual 
Conferences  with  231  missionaries,  104 
missionaries  of  the  Woman’s  Foreign 
Missionary  Society,  277  native  members 
of  Conference,  979  teachers,  more  than 
125,000  church  members  and  probation- 
ers, over  141,000  Sunday-school  schol- 
ars, fifty-five  high  schools,  four  col- 
leges, and  a total  Christian  community 
of  more  than  185,000  souls! 

HALF  A CONTINENT  AND  A BABEL  OF 
TONGUES 

When  this  great  work  was  started 
fifty  years  ago,  it  was  the  expectation 
of  the  missionary  authorities  at  home, 
as  well  as  of  the  missionaries  in  the 
field,  that  the  work  should  be  confined 
to  one  field  of  limited  extent,  in  which 
only  one  language  was  spoken ; but  so 
far  from  being  able  to  adhere  to  this 
purpose,  our  missionaries  in  Southern 
Asia  today  are  preaching  in  thirty-seven 


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different  tongues!  So  far  from  having 
a small  field  about  the  size  of  Indiana, 
and  with  a population  of  seventeen  mil- 
lions, they  are  scattered  over  the  south- 
ern half  of  a continent,  and  are  preach- 
ing to  a teeming  multitude  of  three 
hundred  and  fifty  millions!  Truly  God 
has  put  his  seal  upon  the  work  of  his 
servants,  and  the  great  Church  which 
planted  and  sustains  this  work  should 
ponder  well  the  lesson  which  God  has 
been  teaching  her  in  the  ends  of  the 
earth. 

FOR  THE  FATHERLESS  IN  THEIR 
AFFLICTION 

But  the  above  statistics  do  not  by  any 
means  tell  the  full  story  of  the  success 
and  wide  influence  of  this  work  in 
Southern  Asia.  It  was  in  India  that 
our  Church  first  entered  boldly  and  on 
a large  scale  upon  orphanage  work.  In 
1860  two  orphanages  were  opened,  one 
for  boys  and  one  for  girls,  and  from 
that  day  to  the  present  hour  no  orphan 
has  been  turned  away.  More  than 
twenty  orphanages  and  several  thou- 
sand children  are  cared  for, — more  per- 
haps than  in  all  the  other  sections  of 
our  Church  put  together. 

THE  HEALING  ART  IN  WOMAN'S  HANDS 

It  was  to  this  Mission  that  the  first 
woman  physician  who  ever  entered  a 
heathen  land  was  sent,  and  in  which  an 
attempt  was  ever  made  to  teach  Asiatic 
women  the  science  and  practice  of  med- 


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icine.  It  was  within  the  bounds  of  the 
original  Mission  that  the  first  college 
for  women  was  established,  and  today 
this  institution  holds  a leading  position 
in  the  empire.  N o less  than  seven  pub- 
lishing houses  have  been  established  at 
different  language  centers  in  this  vast 
field,  from  which  literature  in  twenty 
or  more  languages  is  issued.  Training 
schools  have  been  established  at  many 
points,  and  hundreds  of  young  men  are 
receiving  instruction  to  fit  them  for  the 
ministry  of  the  Word  among  the  multi- 
tudes of  simple  people  who  wait  for  the 
light  which  can  best  be  taken  to  them 
by  representatives  of  their  own  people. 

THE  FULFILLMENT  OF  A GREAT  HOPE 
These  facts  are  very  striking  and  full 
of  encouragement,  apart  from  all  other 
considerations,  but  the  most  striking 
feature  of  the  case  is  the  fulfillment  of 
Dr.  Durbin’s  hope  that  the  mission  in 
India  might  mark  the  beginning  of  a 
new  era  in  the  foreign  work  of  our 
Church.  This  has  been  realized  in  an 
extraordinary  way.  Closely  following 
the  advance  in  India,  a new  era  opened 
in  Eastern  Asia.  The  little  mission  in 
China  has  expanded  into  five  great 
fields.  Japan  was  occupied,  and  then 
Korea;  Mexico  was  taken  up,  and  the 
little  mission  at  Buenos  Ayres  has  been 
extended  over  the  whole  of  South  Amer- 
ica; and,  lastly,  the  work  in  Africa  has 


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received  a special  recognition  from  the 
General  Conference,  which  will  make  it 
in  time  one  of  the  grandest  mission 
fields  in  the  world. 

AN  APPROPRIATE  CALL  AND  A FITTING 
CELEBRATION 

In  view  of  all  these  facts,  there  seems 
to  be  a special  propriety  in  the  action  of 
the  General  Conference  in  calling  on  the 
Church  to  celebrate  in  a fitting  manner 
the  conclusion  of  the  first  fifty  years  of 
the  Mission  in  India.  It  concerns  the 
missionary  interests  of  the  whole 
Church,  and  in  a sense  pertains  to  all 
our  foreign  work.  The  whole  Church 
should  join  in  thanksgiving,  and  should 
lay  upon  her  altars  an  offering  worthy 
of  such  an  occasion. 

A DESIGNATED  DAY  OF  JUBILEE 

After  long  and  careful  inquiry,  the 
second  Sunday  in  May  has  been  selected 
as  the  date  on  which  our  people  are  in- 
vited to  hold  special  missionary  services 
in  all  their  sanctuaries  in  celebration  of 
this  important  event  in  our  history. 
The  day  should  be  made  one  of  joy 
and  gladness,  and  a special  thank-offer- 
ing should  be  laid  upon  the  altar  of 
every  sanctuary.  If  for  local  reasons 
the  service  cannot  be  held  on  the  day 
named,  another  date  may  be  selected. 
The  several  Churches  will  be  permitted 
to  report  the  amounts  given  as  “special 
gifts,  ” under  the  rule  which  governs  of- 
ferings so  designated. 


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